Fox News fell for a series of AI-generated videos this weekend in which fake SNAP beneficiaries bitterly complain and threaten to “ransack” grocery stores, then rewrote the post and acknowledged the error.
Posted midafternoon on Halloween, the original headline reads: “SNAP Beneficiaries Threaten to Ransack Stores Over Government Shutdown,” according to the Internet Wayback Machine. After realizing the videos were fakes, Fox rewrote the post with the headline “AI Videos of SNAP Beneficiaries Complaining About Cuts Go Viral.”
The lead paragraph of the original post reads: “SNAP beneficiaries have expressed outrage on social media over the government shutdown that could affect their grocery benefits starting next month, and some are even threatening to ransack stores if food stamp payments don’t go through starting Nov. 1.”
The post quoted multiple TikTok videos, including one in which a mother says: “It is the taxpayer’s responsibility to take care of my kids. It is the taxpayer’s job to pay for my kids to eat and for my kids to be taken care of.”
In another example, Fox wrote: “The user went on to ask how she was supposed to feed her seven children,” including the quote “‘I have seven different baby daddies and none of ‘em no good for me,’ she said.”
The post also noted that Fox News contributor Brett Cooper discussed the woman’s comments on her YouTube channel, “calling the video ‘insane.’”
The post was written by Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi, who is listed as a freelance production assistant at Fox News Digital. Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
In the rewritten post, the lead paragraph states: “What appears to be an artificially generated video of SNAP beneficiaries expressing outrage on social media over the government shutdown have gone viral in recent days.” References to on-air Fox contributor commentary about the videos were removed.
An editor’s note was added to the bottom of the rewritten post that says: “This article previously reported on some videos that appear to have been generated by AI without noting that. This has been corrected.”
